[i]"Redana!" When Redana opens her eyes, Bella's nose is inches from hers. Her ears are flat underneath her frilly headdress and her eyes are wide with concern. It's only seeing Redana open her eyes that causes the servitor to relax slightly. "Milady," she says, sitting back on her haunches, hands tight in her lap, "Are you all right? I think that, um, it might be better to call it there for today." "LESSON NOT COMPLETE," the Wrestler groans through his voxbox, settled back into an opening stance. "TRUANCY WILL BE LOGGED." Bella hisses at the automaton, showing her teeth. Redana closes her eyes and feels the temptation to lie back and let the floor swallow her. Her limbs throb, her head aches where it hit the sand, and her chest is convulsively rising and falling, her body desperate for air. But if she doesn’t get up, if she teeters off the last of her strength and collapses into exhaustion and aching pain, she’ll lose the only thing on her biweekly report that she’s really proud of. "I'm not done, Bella," she says, pushing herself up onto her elbows. Her body throbs. "I'm not done yet." She can't stop herself from a breathless giggle, her grin vapid and delighted, even as Bella's eyebrows meet in a worried frown. "It's okay. I promise, I'll be careful this time."[/i] *** One of the worst things about a thunderbolt is that it cannot safely be removed from a target. The power running through it causes muscles to convulsively clench, locking it in place. Once struck by the hammer of the gods, the only thing that may be done for the unfortunate survivor is to be carried from the battlefield so that the surgeons may inject relaxants around the impact site. It is not a weapon to be used lightly; it is not a weapon that respects life. Redana's hand is clenched into a gnarled claw, her arm will not bend, and her eye of flesh is blinded with salty tears running loose and free down her cheek, cutting a trail through the sweat and the oil. Her [i]Ianuspater[/i] locks on the god of the dead, and helpfully informs her that she is in the presence of a deity. On the other side of the corridor seal, the boarding phalanx carefully weakens key points so that the blasting charge will tear it open and blast Redana and any foolish counter-boarders (as if there were any left) with shrapnel. The official line is that Redana is proof to any violence save decapitation. King Jas'o apparently means to test the blessings of the gods. She does not know whether she is to be taken alive or dead; she does not know whether her fate, should she fail here, is to become the Grand Admiral's concubine or to suffer from an "inauspicious hull breach event" and drift forever among the sea-rimed dead. All she knows is that her flesh cannot, will not heal with this intruder forcing open her skin and muscle, sending shocks of power against the bone it grazed in its impact, and that she is bleeding out at an alarming rate. Dimly, she's aware that her nanites must have [i]some[/i] limits to the amount of blood they can replicate at a moment's notice. And she is so tired. The pipes shuddering against her back invite her to make them her bed, and not even the valves stabbing her in the kidney and spine can make that less appealing. All she needs to do is close her eye and will the [i]Ianuspater[/i] to silence. All she needs to do is reach out and take that hand, and he'll carry her off to bed. "...it becomes us... to uphold our vows," she murmurs, through bloodied lips. "All civilization is... based on the promises that, that the gods make man, and... and the promises that man makes, makes the gods. In all things, the prince... princess... must reflect the proper order, or... or risk undoing... the very founding of their rule." Her head lolls, but the [i]Ianuspater[/i] holds steady. "Theoclitus," she cites with absolute certainty.[1] "I made a promise," she adds, but she's not thinking of the promise she made to him. She's not on the ship at all. *** [i]The eyepatch has a skull on it. Written around it in a circle is BORN TO DIE 777813 DEAD GHOSTS. If Bella understands what it means, she's doing a really good job of hiding it, and Redana really has no clue. It's a "subculture" thing. Down here, everybody has their own "subculture," which they cling desperately to. Everybody has their, their thing, and they'll fight about whose is best, and cram it into their tiny apartments, and take it out on their servitors, and the servitors collect the scraps and make their own incomprehensible mixtures just to survive. Redana sits on the bench and swings her lace-up boots, and she's thinking so hard that she hasn't said anything at all in, well, minutes. She's practically overheating with it. Beside her, Bella fidgets in the snakeskin jacket and plaited denim leggings, broadcasting her distress loud and clear. And why wouldn't she be distressed? There's only room for the humans, here, which means that a servitor has to live with their human or... The alleyways are dangerous. Her knuckles aren't bruised any more, but she can still feel the contact, how one swing broke the servitor's jaw, how he fell back onto the box which crumpled underneath him, how he keened as Bella tugged at her hand and begged her to run, how she realized as she let Bella drag her away that she just made him crush everything he owned under his own weight, how thin and lean and hungry he looked, how desperate he must have been... When she argues with her tutors, she's got rooms and rooms to give herself space. But there's no space here. And everyone loves her mother, and everyone tunes in to one of the seventy available channels every night, and everyone clings desperately to their apartment and their subculture and they never, ever look up. It's like sticking a plant in a pot that's too small, and then shoving it in the back of a closet for good measure, and the worst part is that she can see so much creativity, so much wanting, stifled and channeled into tiny rooms and weird clothes and lashing out at servitors for taking up too much space... "I'm going to fix this," she says, and her fingers brush against Bella's. "I promise."[/i] *** "King of Stones," Redana says, each word dragged out of some bottomless depth, her throat raw. "I. I thank you for your gift." Her gauntleted hand reaches out and, so carefully, closes his fingers on his palm. "But. I made a promise..." You can do it. Finish strong, Redana. This is the last mile, and then you can drink, and walk in a circle so that you don't cramp. "King of Stones, loosen my flesh as the dead, so that I can pull this dart free. I will... will give you my food, burnt as offering. All yours." She dimly remembers that the gods don't actually eat the burnt offerings. It's something to do with the smoke and the energy released. Without waiting for the answer, she reaches up to her shoulder. (A target chosen by instinct. If she kept her ELF there, it would have been obliterated.) When she grabs it, the energy threatens to short out her gauntlet, but what other choice does she have? What else can she do? She made a promise. *** [1] Arathmus, [i]The Letters[/i]: "It becomes us to uphold our vows in all things, from the smallest to the most momentous. The structure of civilization is composed of the promises that man makes to the gods, sure in the knowledge that the gods will uphold their one great vow: to maintain their essential and discernable natures. In all things, o prince, you must reflect this good and proper order, or risk undoing the foundation of your rule." *** [Talk Sense with Sense: [b]9[/b].]